one: symphony

There is a melody to falling in love.

It starts off soft, sweet, slow. It starts off with notes painting themselves across feverish skin to the staccato beat of a blossoming heart. It starts off with a quiet waltz of fluttering butterflies. And then it ascends, crescendo, crescendo, crescendo, all the way to church bells and screaming violins and Tchaikovsky's sixteen cannons---before it drops, leaving its victim terrified and breathless, chest flailing for air.

Jeong-Soon feels it now, the little semiquaver butterflies dancing along his arms as the world shifts into oblivion, leaving behind just himself---and the dark-haired boy standing in front of him. He shouldn't be thinking like this---after all, he doesn't even know this guy. But there is something magnetic about the other boy's fiery, coal-eyed stare, something that makes Jeong-Soon want to crash into his orbit.

Before he can take a step forward, the boy beats him to the punch.

"You were staring," the mystery boy says, and there's so much emotion packed into his voice that it makes Jeong-Soon weak. Not anger, not disgust, nothing particularly negative, in fact. Just raw, undiluted, indistinguishable feelings, snapped into the rhythm of three simple words. Two bands are playing at the same time, from different ends of the park, and the music wavers and fades around Jeong-Soon's personal bubble---which the boy has just invaded.

"Do we know each other?" The boy is a little shorter than Jeong-Soon, and a red jacket adorned with various band pins hangs off his slim shoulders. He's thin and wiry, with messy dark hair curling past his ears. But it's his eyes that make him far from unremarkable; his irises are so black they seem to blend into his pupils. There's fire sewn tight into every inch of his body, and he throbs along to the heavy beat pounding through the park.

Jeong-Soon swallows. "No, I don't think so." Then, to save his dignity, he continues, "You just look like someone I know, that's all." It's a terrible lie, and he says it with as much conviction as he feels---none, to say the least.

"You're a horrible liar. Did your friends ditch you or something?" The flame in the boy's impossibly dark eyes flickers, and Jeong-Soon can't help a shiver from running down his neck. Out of his---their---bubble, the bands get louder. Crescendo, crescendo, crescendo. The boy doesn't seem to care, though.

"No. My sister did." Jeong-Soon briefly closes his eyes. He's normally more relaxed with people, laughing and joking easily. But there's something about the boy's stare that pins him down---something that's turned him from a social butterfly to a helpless one stuck under a magnifying glass, paralysed with fear as sunbeams approach his iridescent wings. "It's my birthday, so she decided bringing me to a music festival was the best way to celebrate. She abandoned me once The Cherries came on."

"They're a fucking great band. I don't blame her." The boy kicks at one of the many stray pebbles strewn across the park floor. "It's my birthday too. That's why I'm here."

"Happy birthday." Jeong-Soon feels almost embarrassed; talking to strangers is his forte, but he can't find the right words for this situation.

"Same to you." The boy fixes him with his striking gaze again. "I'm Gregory Gan. And I think you were staring at me because you find me attractive."

Jeong-Soon freezes, and his senses shut off one by one---eyes shut, ears plugged, tongue slit, until all that is left is the vague sawdust outline of his heart, still pumping blood to his pale cheeks. His pulse is so loud that it drowns out the rest of the universe, pounding fortissimo in his chest.

"It's okay," the boy---Gregory---says, and something stretches across his face. It's not a grin, it's not a smirk, and it's not even a smile. But it's full of fire and emotion, just like the rest of him. "I don't blame you at all."

And that's how it starts, with music echoing around them and words plucked from the velvet sky.

٩( ᐛ )و

"Have you ever been kissed?"

It's almost six in the evening, and the interchanging bands are still playing, and Jeong-Soon's heart is alight with his new companion's fire. He doesn't know where his sister is. He's not sure if he cares. All he cares about is the light, staccato beat of his heart as it hums along to Gregory Gan's tune.

"No," Jeong-Soon admits.

"Me neither." Gregory's obsidian eyes dart over to a stand, where a young woman with a mousy brown ponytail is hunched over stacks of headphones. As if sensing his gaze, she looks up. Jeong-Soon feels a strange shudder make its way down his spine.

The woman rises from her booth. Before Jeong-Soon can yank at his companion's hand to pull him away, she is in front of them, peering at them with soulless blue eyes.

"Ma'am, please, we're not trying to buy anything---" Jeong-Soon starts. The woman ignores him, grabbing his sleeve.

As if her touch has flipped a switch, Jeong-Soon notices the light in Gregory's eyes flick off. He doesn't say a word, but Jeong-Soon notices how he digs his teeth into his lower lip before yanking Jeong-Soon's arm out of the woman's grasp. The woman is undeterred, and she soundlessly shoves whatever she's holding into his hands before scuttling back to her stall.

"What the fuck?" Gregory mumbles, and Jeong-Soon notices his flame come to life again---except it isn't vibrant and magnetic and piercing anymore. It's almost angry, radiating off him in dark waves that make Jeong-Soon resist the urge to step away. He stares down at his own hands, where two pairs of headphones rest. One brilliant red, the other calming blue.

Jeong-Soon glances at his own azure denim jacket, and then at Gregory's scarlet one. He can't stop the peal of laughter that bubbles forth from his lips, and he doesn't try to. "That's so weird."

"I'm going to shove these up her ass to teach her not to grab random people," Gregory grumbles darkly. He turns around before letting out another expletive, one so vulgar that Jeong-Soon finds himself wincing. "Where's that bitch gone?"

Jeong-Soon turns too. The stall is gone, as well as the strange lady---nothing but dust left behind, as if neither had ever been there in the first place.

He feels like he's stuck in some weird fever dream, but he knows he's not dreaming---the very solid headphones in his hands are proof of that. He's unbelievably confused, but he manages a careless shrug and plasters a quick grin across his face. "Maybe she's a ghost and she ships us." Jeong-Soon's only half-teasing. He's already lived for sixteen years, and yet his heart has never pounded so hard as now, when he's standing next to Gregory Gan despite only having known him for a few hours.

"Huh." Gregory doesn't smile, but his aura seems to change; he's vibrant and twitchy once more, the danger is gone. Jeong-Soon feels his myocardium pick up its pace. Accelerando. It makes him tingle all the way to his fingertips as the world around him shifts, dusting his vision in red and blue. "Do you want to go find your sister? Or is there a certain band you'd want to watch?"

"I'm not really into any of the bands performing today," Jeong-Soon admits. He'd only come because Si-Young had insisted on giving her little brother a birthday treat, and even though it had seemed more like she'd just wanted someone to accompany her to the music festival, he'd appreciated the gesture anyway. "And Si-Young will be fine on her own. I guess she'd text me if she wasn't."

"I see." Gregory fixes him with a jet-black stare, and Jeong-Soon finds himself almost squirming in anticipation. "Earlier, when you said you've never been kissed, were you telling the truth?" He's not smiling. Jeong-Soon doesn't expect him to.

Jeong-Soon shakes his head and forces out a tentative chuckle. He's too nervous to laugh properly. "It's a bit of a surprise for a ladies' man like me, huh?"

Gregory doesn't reply immediately. Instead, he takes one pair of headphones out of Jeong-Soon's hands---the blue set. When he hangs it around his own neck, Jeong-Soon looks at him in surprise. He'd expected Gregory to take the red pair.

Gregory gives no explanation. He simply picks up the red headphones, slipping them around Jeong-Soon's neck. "You'd damn well better remember me," he says, before pushing himself up on his tiptoes. Jeong-Soon can hardly breathe. Crescendo, crescendo, crescendo, goes his traitorous pulse, screaming out for Gregory to connect their yearning mouths.

When Gregory finally presses their lips together, Jeong-Soon finds his arms making their way around the other boy, pulling him closer and deepening the kiss. The butterflies in his stomach spread their wings and fly away, embracing the sweet song of sunlight as Jeong-Soon gives in completely, knees weak and eyes closed tight. Skin to skin, mouth to mouth, heart to heart.

fun fact: if the title of the book wasn't stylised in a more metaphorical, The Fault In Our Stars way (and also, if it hadn't stemmed from my need to avoid cliché titles), the title would have been Crescendo.

fun fact number 2: i honestly have no idea whether Tchaikovsky used sixteen cannons or twenty-one in his 1812 Overture. some sources say sixteen, some sources say twenty-one. i went with sixteen because in the 1812 Overture, there are sixteen cannon shots fired, and although i don't know the number of cannons used to fire said sixteen shots, i decided i might as well use the same number. also, no, this is not fake. Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture really has cannons in it, because apparently cannons are an instrument.

also:

crescendo - getting louder

fortissimo (ff) - very loud

accelerando - accelerating

honestly, i hadn't meant to turn this into a music-based book, but i figured that music is the thing that connects Jeong-Soon and Gregory---like, they meet at a music festival and they meet again at a music class. they're also connected by several other things involving music but i can't reveal them because they're not in the blurb and that would be spoiling this whole mess. and like, i'm pretty decent at music so i was like "okay why tf not"

anyways thank y'alls so much for your support, you have No Idea how much i appreciate it! i just got into tenth grade, like, three weeks ago, so school is pretty rough for me rn and that's why i might not reply to comments for, like, a few days at a time, but Trust Me, i WILL eventually reply to at least 99% of the comments.

also, if you haven't realised, my A/Ns are bloody long, but i can assure you they'll get shorter vv soon

and also my writing sucks lmao. sorry, i wrote this at 2am while multitasking on History homework

anyways, love you guys, please continue to stay with this book, and don't forget to let me know if you're participating in the ONC too!

xoxo, Alex